TV NICK LEFT ME FOR HIS EX AS WE LAY IN BED
Emmerdale Gemma tells how star ended their whirlwind fling
SOAP star Gemma Oaten says Nick Knowles ended their romance as they lay in bed.
She says DIY SOS star Nick, 54, reacted badly to pictures of them on a night out. Gemma, 32, says it was clear he wanted a reunion with wife Jess, 28. She said: “In an instant he completely changed.”
A SOAP beauty today tells how TV handyman Nick Knowles left her in tears as their whirlwind romance crumbled while they lay in bed together. Former Emmerdale star Gemma Oaten claims the DIY SOS host suddenly grew cold and distant after their phones flagged up Sunday Mirror snaps of them getting loveydovey after an awards night. Married Nick, 54, later rubbed salt into the stunned actress’s wounds by claiming he was “working through things” with estranged wife Jessica and that he only went on ONE date with Gemma. And as Gemma was left reeling, a newspaper report emerged branding her a marriage wrecker, claiming she had been ‘obsessed’ with the DIY man before his marital split. Now the 32-year-old star wants to set the record straight. “I am reluctantly being forced to speak out as I have been painted in the worst way possible,” she says.
“I don’t think he is deep down malicious, but he needs to know he can’t treat people like this.”
Speaking for the first time about their short romance last month, Gemma says the way it ended left her sickened.
“One Sunday morning we were lying in bed and all these texts came through about us being photographed together,” says Gemma. “In an instant he completely changed. It was all about him and how it was going to affect his family. It was really cruel as he said it t didn’t matter for me.” Our pictures, showed Nick, who split from Jessica earlier this year, in a late-night embrace with Gemma outside the Langham Hotel in London after the previous Monday’s TV Choice awards .
Wearing Nick’s suit jacket, Gemma was seen resting her head on his chest as they looked at his phone. It was the first glimpse of their new romance
But as the couple lay looking at the pictures,Gemma claims his frosty reaction spelled the beginning of the end for them.
GUSHED
She says: “I felt sick. I said, ‘do you want to throw away what we have got? We have done nothing wrong.’ But he just dropped me like a ton of bricks.”
In the days that followed, the reports emerged unfairly claiming Gemma was “obsessed” – based on social media messages she sent him about his show. And Nick gushed about trying to win his wife back.
But Gemma claims he had sworn to her that he would never go back to Jessica and that the relationship was done for good.
She says she had no reason to believe otherwise after he made a move on her just seconds after they were introduced to each other at the awards night at London’s Dorchester.
She says: “Nick told me how beautiful I was and turned to my gay best friend and said ‘ you must be a very lucky man’.
“He replied, ‘all her best friends are gay, so that’s why she is single. And she meets too many idiots.’
“Nick laughed and s said to me, ‘well I’m not gay, I’m single and I’m not an idiot. Let me take you out for dinner’.”
She claims that after sneaking a cheeky kiss behind a dressing screen,
In an instant he changed. It was all about him and how it would affect his family GEMMA OATEN ON KNOWLES GOING COLD ON HER IN BED
they went onto the Langham Hotel for drinks afterwards where they were photographed. Hull lass Gemma, who has been single since splitting from actor Andy Barnes last year, says she was stunned when Nick invited her to Edinburgh for the weekend where he was a guest at a charity ball.
“He wanted me to be his date. I was swept off my feet,” she says. She claims Nick even got his PA to take her on a shopping trip for the Saturday night.
Gemma, who played factory girl Rachel Breckle in Emmerdale, joked: “It was like a family-friendly version of Pretty Woman. He said I could buy anything I wanted. It was so surreal. I usually get wooed with a pint down the local in Hull.”
She says they soon had nicknames for each other – Haddock, after Hull’s fishing industry, for her, and Lobster for him “because he was a bit posher”.
After flying into Edinburgh, they enjoyed romantic strolls around the city. Gemma confided in him about her ill mum Marg. She says: “He bought me a caricature from a street artist to give to my mum. He was taking care of me. He said ‘you deserve the best, and I am going to give you it’. He treated me like a princess.”
She says they openly acted like they were on a date the whole weekend, with Nick holding her hand and taking her to see the sights. He was also not afraid to make jokes in front of strangers about the them.
NIGGLES
Gemma says: “We were going through the airport and he was joking with staff about us. I thought it was a real relationship and he wasn’t afraid to let others know. He said him and Jess were never going to be together.
“I would have steered clear if he wanted to get back with her.”
The only niggles she had was that he spent so much time combing his hair and that he criticised her dress sense. “He said my trousers and tops didn’t flatter me and I could look better,” she says. “Which is ironic given he had holes in his T-shirts.”
She also claims he has a Twitter obsession. “Every single part of our trip that didn’t go to plan was tweeted about. Our luggage didn’t arrive on the conveyor belt, so he tweeted about it. He couldn’t get into Edinburgh Castle for free, and tweeted about that too.”
It seemed apt it was his phone that ended it all. After they left Edinburgh and went their separate ways, Gemma claims Nick at first ignored her phone calls until he saw the story about her being “secretly obsessed” with him “for years”. It based its evidence on Gemma tweeting Nick two years ago about how she loved his BBC1 show.
Gemma says: “I didn’t understand his reaction. I only tweeted about DIY SOS as my brother used to work on it in Hull – and I love it.
“I said I’d speak to his wife if he was worried Jess thought he had an affair. He said he needed to sort out things his side.” Gemma says he asked her not to talk about their romance. Then he rubbed it in with tweeted snaps of a “blissful” break with Jessica in Lake Garda, Italy, before going public on his time with Gemma, saying: “We are not dating. She’s a lovely girl but I’m not in a place at the moment where I am looking to date anybody.”
He said he and Jessica, who revealed she had cervical cancer in July, were “working through things” and still “deeply close.”
Gemma says: “I was so upset when I saw they were together in Garda. He had promised I could go there with him. When I saw that I knew I was done.”
She says her mum has been worried about her after her battles with eating disorders when younger. “I am very sensitive and I have been hurt a lot in the past, but I won’t let this crush me,” says Gemma now earning rave reviews in an Alan Ayckbourn play, fittingly called Bedroom Farce. “I don’t wish any ill on Jess and Nick. I just want to put the record straight and move on.”
Nick did not comment.
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